I'm in northern Florida and the rain is dripping off the Spanish moss. Outside a frog is croaking. It's been a long, zigzag summer, and now it's winding down. We are staying at a house in which nobody really lives any more, since our friend is in the process of moving southward.

But this is an area that holds a lot of our past, and especially my lover's past. Last night at dinner, there were dykes, there was family, there was a friend from our life in Venezuela. Some of us talked about getting older, some talked about having kids, and we all agreed that the US empire was rolling to a close.

I got into a conversation with my lover's former French teacher (and old friend) about machines. She doesn't like them, is resisting them, doesn't own a computer. I said that my lover is dragging me, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century. New gadgets keep entering our lives. I got out a little silver box and took her picture.

Much later, we went outside to load a friend's wheelchair into her car. The sky was clotted with clouds, and the humid night buzzed with insect life. It seemed like a sound that had gone on since the beginning of time, and would continue at least that long. The night had space in it for a lighted house, for a few cars, but you had the feeling it would revert to a more primitive state at any moment.

I went back into the house fast, before the fire ants found my bare feet. You don't have to be so tough, you don't have to protect yourself, when you live inside houses.

Earlier this summer, in Pennsylvania, I met a woman who lives outside in the woods, and who doesn't own anything. She believes in adapting herself to nature, not requiring nature to adapt to her. She lets the trees filter the rainwater, so that she doesn't get too wet. She's not all that young, either.

When it breaks down, if it breaks down, none of us are exactly sure what we'll be taking with us.

These days, there's a sense that we're all waiting, seeing how the wind blows. I just had an impulse to stop writing and start surfing the Internet, looking for evidence that people are doing things. I know they're out there, working to change the system, fighting to end the war. But I can't go online to hunt for evidence, because there's no internet access here at this house. No reason for it, in a house that's also waiting.

August will be like that too, a month of waiting. At the new moon on the 4th, the sun, moon and Mercury will all be opposing Neptune, the planet of ambivalence and uncertainty. The sun, moon and Mercury will be in the fire sign Leo, so you could imagine them as a trio of young adventurers. They wear bright clothes and fly colorful flags. They are ready to take on the world. But they have to deal with Neptune, the figure in the mist, the shape-changer.

Neptune has many tricks up her sleeve. She shifts the ground under your feet, slowly so that you don't notice at first that you're sliding. She excites you with beautiful visions that fade away into nothingness. She hypnotizes you and then snaps you out of it. She offers dreams which fall apart in your hands.

These are all things to watch out for in August. Whenever you think you're walking on the solid ground of certainty, pay attention to what's just ahead. You may be walking off a cliff. If you're innocent enough, like the Fool in the tarot deck, you may survive the fall. But there are no guarantees, except that nature will recycle all our bones, one way or another.

Another thing about August is that there's a conjunction between Jupiter and the south node. This aspect is exact around the first quarter of the moon, the first turning point after the new moon. The south node is a karmic point, and its general message is that you get what you're used to. There's a power in habit, in doing things as you've always done them.

At the same time, this is also the place that you must leave behind, in order to become whole. You can return, but only after you've been away. Everything in nature circles around, from the moon to the trees to the birds. Only the human mind stubbornly tries to hold on to what worked in the last season.

Jupiter is the planet of administrative power, so the conjunction of Jupiter and the south node shows that we're trying to hold on to the political and social systems of the past - and it just won't work. Right now, the kings of the past are securely on their thrones, and they're hanging on tight. The thrones seem strong and permanent, but that's just an illusion. When the mist clears, the thrones will be empty, hung with spider-webs, and the kings will be the stuff of stories told in the village square.

What will we take with us? We don't know that yet. The survivalists are packing guns and bibles, high government officials are building tunnels, and a Pennsylvania woman lives under the trees. I think I'll take my lover and my friends. Maybe I should wear my shoes.

Index of Jenny Yates' Writings on Lesbian.com